Proverbs 27:17 - Homiletics

The advantages of society

I. OBSERVE IN WHAT THE ADVANTAGES OF SOCIETY CONSIST . We have ancient authority for the idea that it is not good for man to be alone ( Genesis 2:18 ). Man is naturally a gregarious being. Though some people are more sociable than others, no one can be healthy in perpetual solitude. The isolation of the hermit engendered the wildest hallucinations of fanaticism together with the narrowest conception of the world. Prisoners of the Bastille, in solitary confinement, were reduced to a condition of semi-idiocy. Robinson Crusoe made the best of his situation, yet he could not live without the companionship of animal pets, and he was glad of the humble friendship of a poor savage.

1 . Society quickens a man ' s intelligence . Even Wordsworth was thought by some to have deteriorated mentally in his comparative seclusion at Rydal Mount, and yet there were other men of high mental power in his neighbourhood. Men's thoughts are stimulated and sharpened by conversation.

2 . Society rouses a man ' s energy . Empty society of mere pleasure seekers only dissipates a man's powers in frivolity. But the society of earnest men stimulates by sympathy, emulation, and encouragement.

3 . Society broadens a man ' s views . He is able to see how other men think and feel. They may not all have greater advantages than he possesses; but at least they are differently constituted and situated from himself. Thus he is lifted out of the narrowness of his own single vision. Such breadth gives strength when it is accompanied by an earnest love of truth and right.

II. CONSIDER HOW THE ADVANTAGES OF SOCIETY MAY BE REALIZED .

1 . They are dependent on a man ' s residence . Horace's old dispute between the town and the country mouse has never been settled. Cowper wrote, "God made the country, man made the town;" and no doubt there is to be seen a certain restfulness, a purity, and a quiet power in nature that those men miss who reside in the heart of a wilderness of houses, Nevertheless, there are compensations for the disagreeable pressure of population in great cities. The mind is quickened. Still, as evils also result from this manner of living, it is certainly important that those who are able to select their own residences should consider wholesome society to be as important as a pure water supply.

2 . They can be found in sympathetic friendship . One good, true friend is more helpful than a score of mere acquaintances. It is in the close intercourse of genuine friendship that the best results of the mutual play of thought and feeling can be obtained. Hence the supreme importance of cultivating friendship with the wise and good.

3 . They should be obtained in the Christian Church . Christ not only called disciples to himself, one by one; he founded the Church, and his apostles established local Churches wherever they could gather together a few converts. Christian companionship should be a help to Christian life and thought. There was a time when they who feared the Lord spake often one to another ( Malachi 3:16 ). Above this earthly friendship the Christian finds a mental and spiritual quickening in the friendship of Christ ( Luke 24:32 ).